Early barcodes were typically one-dimensional (“1-D”) barcodes containing a series of vertical black lines separated by white spaces which contained information readable by handheld or other types of scanners. The amount of information which could be recorded by a 1-D barcode in a given area was limited. This led to the development of black and white two-dimensional (“2-D”) barcodes, which were often just a series of stacked 1-D barcodes still constrained as to the amount of data they could carry. To carry more data, color 2-D barcodes were developed. While 2-D color barcodes carry a greater amount of information than traditional black and white 2-D barcodes, when photocopied using a traditional black and white copy process, the 2-D color barcodes exhibit unknown loss characteristics which destroy the data information originally stored in the 2-D color barcode.